Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) has reached an agreement with Samsung Corp. on patents, which will see ongoing royalty payments from Samsung to Ericsson. The details of the deal are confidential, but Ericsson says in a statement that the initial payment in the agreement will boost Ericsson's sales and earnings in the fourth quarter of 2013 by 4.2 billion Swedish kroner ($652 million) and SEK3.3 billion ($512 million) respectively. Back in 2011 Ericsson sued Samsung over its refusal to renew a patent license agreement on so-called FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms, following two years of negotiations. (See Euronews: Ericsson Sets Lawyers on Samsung and Euronews: Ericsson Eyes Patents Cash Cow.)

Re: Wonder if NSA story is hindering AT&T's traction? This Wall Street Journal story seems to suggest as much:

"At a dinner Tuesday night during the annual gathering of top executives and political figures in the Swiss resort town, Mr. Stephenson asked Commissioner Neelie Kroes how revelations of data-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency would affect the ability of companies like AT&T to do business in Europe, people familiar with the conversation said.

There was no discussion of specific deals or targets for AT&T, the people said, although Mr. Stephenson did generally reiterate his interest in broadening investment and operations in Europe.

Ms. Kroes replied that U.S. companies, like AT&T, face a trust problem in Europe as a result of the spying disclosures and it is in the interests of all the parties to get that resolved. The scandal is likely to be a live issue as the continent gears up for EU-wide European Parliament elections in May."

My assumption is they try again in six months after the elections are done and the political posturing settles down.

Wonder if NSA story is hindering AT&T's traction? Bloomberg oddly omits this, but I'd seen previous reports suggesting that European regulators aren't exactly thrilled with AT&T's very close ties to the NSA, and that could hamper any Vodafone acquisition. This move appears to only delay any necessary AT&T decision six months, so perhaps AT&T hopes to try later when the outrage over the Snowden leaks has faded slightly?

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At Ultra-broadband Forum, Houlin Zhao, Secretary General of ITU, discussed how important it is for countries, companies and everybody to be working together to help to build the broadband and digital economies (UBBF2016).

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Join us for an in-depth interview between Steve Saunders of Light Reading and Alexis Black Bjorlin of Intel as they discuss the release of the company's Silicon Photonics platform, its performance, long-term prospects, customer expectations and much more.

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